When the world’s best players arrived in Australia, the only realistic talk of a 21st Grand Slam was directed at Novak Djokovic, visa issues permitting.
Quite how Djokovic might have fared had the Australian authorities not intervened will remain the great unknown but Rafael Nadal, for all his past brilliance, had done little to suggest he was the man to take the outright Grand Slam record ahead of Djokovic and Roger Federer.
